Search Engine Optimization is evolving. Is your digital marketing team evolving with it?
Today, the term SEO is a bit of a misnomer. Rather than optimize our websites for search engines, we’re optimizing them for our patients. Smart marketers continually tweak content as they learn more about their patient populations and what they seek.
Behind almost every online destination – website, blog, vlog or social network – is a search engine connecting audiences to the content that will help them with daily life. Make sure your web presence gets constant care.
Misconceptions about SEO still linger. Here are two of the top SEO myths that can hold your practice back:
Myth: Keyword Concentration is What Drives Search Engine Rank
In the early days of SEO, if your competitor put 50 keywords on a web page, you’d put in 100. When your prospective patient entered their search query (a keyword such as “diabetes”), Google matched the query to the websites that seemed to “talk about” diabetes the most. Keyword stuffing became a way to “game” the system. The result was a spammy and artificial content that poorly served the site visitor.
As Google’s algorithm’s evolved, a higher emphasis was placed on sites with trustworthy content, especially for healthcare organizations. Today, Google categorizes healthcare web pages as “pages that could potentially impact the future happiness, health, or financial stability of users.” While keywords are still important, search engines reward websites that have appropriate meta tags, clear page structure and highly credible content.
Myth: Use Coding & Secret Shortcuts to Gain Ranking Traction
Today, the only “trick” of rising to the top of an online healthcare search is an engaging, sharable, trusted and authoritative website. Your site should answer queries with clarity about things like conditions, symptoms, risk factors, tests and treatments. Google also indexes sites according to how well they are structured, mobile optimized and internally linked for the best possible user experience.
Improved results demand continuous page refinement coupled with patience, as rankings slowly shift. It’s worth it. Ninety percent of patients conduct an online search when they have a healthcare question. Seventy-five percent go online to find a provider.
CMG Health Marketing can help make sure you rank higher in search results, generate quality leads and convert searches into appointments. Contact us today.